


Victorious

by themorninglark



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Keith backstory, M/M, Minor Character Death: Keith's parents (offscreen), Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-03
Updated: 2016-07-03
Packaged: 2018-07-19 18:41:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,223
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7373140
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/themorninglark/pseuds/themorninglark
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p></p><blockquote>
  <p>"When you come back - " says Keith, again, and then he can't finish the sentence for the enormity of it, so he stops short. Leaves it hanging like a promise, waiting to be fulfilled, and settles for reaching out to rest his hand on Shiro's shoulder instead. Lets the contact linger for as long as he can, etched like life lines and heart lines into his palm.</p>
  <p>Shiro nods. He doesn't break promises.</p>
  <p>Neither does Keith.</p>
</blockquote>
            </blockquote>





	Victorious

**Author's Note:**

> This began life as a thing on my drabble blog, and then I couldn't really get it out of my head. So here it is, the expanded version. I've been dying over these two for a while now.
> 
> You can read this together with [Too Young To Die](http://archiveofourown.org/works/7455262), which takes on Shiro's POV in canon era, but it stands alone fine!

 

 

 

 

_There are three things you know to be true:_

_1\. He's not dead._

* * *

 

He's shedding up the night sky, and awake, _awake_ , he's a Molotov cocktail against the denim-blue midnight; he wears it tight and close, close as he keeps his prayers to no one, his solitude.

Under his hands, he feels his engine teeter on the precipice of _go, and go again, faster_. Kicks things up another gear with a reckless flick of his wrist. _This_ , this hits the spot, sweeter than honey and coffee and a hot summer's dream, and he _soars_ , swoops low to skim the ground where the red cliffs are watching.

When he comes in to land, Shiro's waiting.

"Hey," he says.

"How long have you been there?" asks Keith, without preamble. His hoverbike's still burning, and he knows it'll scorch the earth if he lets it all the way down. So he leaves it where it is, but for Shiro's sake, he dims the headlights.

Shiro, cloaked in the shadows of the outcropping, doesn't move. His arms are crossed. Keith doesn't have to see his face to know his expression.

"Since you took off. You don't try to be quiet."

"Most of the Garrison doesn't try to be awake at this time."

"I don't need to try. You're practically a siren blaring at my window," says Shiro, and Keith knows he's not _off the hook_ , not yet, but it's just them and there are no witnesses.

"Hey, you're not a cadet any more," Keith points out. He drops his helmet on his seat, saunters over to Shiro and slips his hands in his pockets like he's hiding something. He's not hiding anything. Except in plain sight. "You shouldn't be out after hours."

Shiro presses his lips together in a thin line. "And need I remind _you_ , cadet, that if you get caught again, you'll be suspended?"

Keith smiles, feels his feet stir up dust clouds. It's dry out here in this season. As he approaches, he keeps his pace, closes the distance between them with measured, unhurried steps, and then -

Quick as lightning, he feints left and darts over to his right, flinging an arm out at Shiro. He moves without thought, every finely-honed fighter's instinct _awake, awake,_ within him; he doesn't need moonlight to illuminate his target, he _feels_ him, _knows_ him -

And Shiro twists himself away from the rock in one fluid motion, whips his hand up to catch Keith by the wrist. His grip is firm, unerring, unforgiving. So are his night-sky cosmos eyes, steeped in darkness, _this_ close, this pressing and immediate and _here and now_ , and then there's that burning ache again.

Keith grits his teeth and sparks his smile into a concession of defeat, for now.

"Nice try," Shiro acknowledges.

"I've been training on my own," says Keith. He stands his ground, face tipped upwards, scant inches away from Shiro's.

"I can see that. You'll be better than me soon."

Keith asks his next question abruptly, though he knows the answer.

"When do you leave?"

Shiro's steady gaze, locked onto his own, doesn't waver. "Tomorrow morning."

Keith digs his heels into the ground, clenches his upraised hand into a fist; he feels Shiro's arm tense, knows that, for this stolen moment at least, they're on the same page. Thirsting for galaxies.

(Sleepless, for the same reason.)

"When you come back," says Keith, "I'll be better than you. And then I'll be your co-pilot."

"I don't doubt that. I do doubt if you'll still be in cadet school."

"Yeah, because I'm the best and they're gonna graduate me early - "

And as Shiro's fingers unclasp themselves, peel away from Keith's wrist, he says, " _Keith_ , you know what I mean," and then he lets him go.

It's a parting hymn. That sudden _absence_ , the wind in the valley and that _quiet_ , the quiet in Shiro's voice, it all sings louder than any reprimand in Keith's bones, wraps around him like a glass-shard echo he won't forget.

"When you come back - " says Keith, again, and then he can't finish the sentence for the enormity of it, so he stops short. Leaves it hanging like a promise, waiting to be fulfilled, and settles for reaching out to rest his hand on Shiro's shoulder instead. Lets the contact linger for as long as he can, etched like life lines and heart lines into his palm.

Shiro nods. He doesn't break promises.

Neither does Keith.

 

* * *

 

In a different galaxy, things might have gone another way. He might have grown up _safe_ , he might have _grown up_ , he might have -

But this is the galaxy they're in, and this is how it all starts for Keith:

When, one weekend, he doesn't wave goodbye to his mom and dad at the troublesome age of six and a half, because he's a wayward child this close to a _grounding_ and the open air smells of sand, the kind that gets under his fingernails and into his skin like freedom. He is not supposed to be out of his room. He is out of his room. He's shimmied out his window to the old birch tree in their sprawling backyard and he's entangled somewhere in its branches, all gangly hands and legs and agile limbs that won't stay down. He hears the revving in the driveway out front, the soft _whoosh_ of takeoff.

A splintered twig catches Keith on his arm, leaves a scratch where he crawls upwards. He barely notices. There's a blinding sun on the rise, and he will reach out to trap its heat for himself.

A fly buzzes in his ear. He ignores it. He is closer to touching the sky than he's ever been before. The scrapes on his knees are yesterday's bruises, and today's, today's wounds are fresh and sting like he bites down on his own lip, determined.

He falls asleep in the tree until two policemen come round to his house, later that afternoon. They are armed with gentle words about a _crash_ and firm hands that come to rest on his shoulders, and Keith will let them wash over him and _through_ him like a searing wind that leaves no scars. There is nothing left of him to scar. He thinks, blankly, he is not supposed to be out of his room and he will be grounded for _sure_ now.

He is out of his room. He is out of his room, he is out of his house in the blink of an eye, and he forgets to let go of the sun cupped in his palm. He forgets about it and the fire swallows him alive.

( _If only, if only,_ he had not been in a _strop_ and a mood over - what was it? he cannot remember, now, when you are six and a half every day comes for you with a new kind of fierceness and offenses are as easily collected as they're left behind. Perhaps he would have asked to go out for breakfast with them. He doesn't ask for much. He likes pancakes, with maple syrup. So do his parents. So _did_ his parents.

 _If only_ if he had said goodbye.)

 

* * *

 

_"Hey - excuse me - "_

_"If this is about my uniform, I've already been booked. But thanks."_

_"No. You dropped this."_

 

* * *

 

Their first meeting's an accident, or, on hindsight, a collision course; a model simulation of how to pilot oneself straight into the path of a steady bedrock. Thinking they'll see you for what you are and get the _hell out of the way_. Being wrong. Keith knows about wrong.

A sight for sore eyes in his untucked shirt, he reaches to swipe the glove that Shiro's holding out to him, and _of course_ he knows who he is. Takashi Shirogane, top of his class. Best fighter pilot the Garrison's produced in a century. His name's up in lights, an explosion writ large across all the simulator high scores even as softly, softly, it's whispered among the younger cadets, in hushed tones of awe and respect.

This is the first time Keith's seen him up close. In an instant, he makes his judgement; thinks, _huh. he's no myth_.

Takashi Shirogane, the legend, is flesh and blood and living and breathing. His gaze is polite, concerned, even. His touch is warm, his fingers callused and sure. He is human.

Keith holds his head high, stuffs the glove into his belt where it belongs and gives Shiro a nod by way of thanks. As he turns, the sudden touch on his shoulder makes him freeze in his tracks.

( _touch, touch_ \- and he wants to shake it off and hold it close, to deny it, to take it - )

"Hey, it's you," he hears Shiro's voice. "I know you."

Keith scoffs, a little too bluntly. An alarm bell rings at the back of his mind, like he'll probably be decked for insubordination, or _something_ \- the look on Shiro's face is unfamiliar, and he doesn't know what to make of it, and _that_ unnerves him -

"You wouldn't know me," he says as he starts to tug away, but Shiro smiles.

"I watched you on the simulator last week."

Keith stares in disbelief. "You? Watched _me?_ "

"Sure. I heard some prodigy was on the verge of beating my high scores. Had to see it for myself, right?"

There's a crinkle, right then, in the corners of Shiro's eyes, and there's the hearth-bright glint of something that's a warning and an invitation all at once, and Keith dares to venture a smirk as he takes it in, draws himself up to his full height. It's not much. He's still dwarfed by Shiro's frankly impressive frame. He doesn't really care, in this moment.

A mistake, one of many in his string of disasters, or, in another universe -

(perhaps _this_ universe - )

A first step, to his pyrrhic victory.

 

* * *

 

_2\. He is human, and he is alive, he is alive._

 

* * *

 

"Hey, Keith," calls a voice that's vaguely familiar, and Keith breaks his reverie to look up at the corridor above. It's one of the cargo pilots. He can't remember his name.

"Yeah?" Keith asks. The question's a short, sharp spurt of breath drawn from his panting chest, and it's something of a snap back to the present for him to realise he's sweating and everything aches and his back is screaming for a stretch.

The cargo pilot, leaning over the railing, nods pointedly at the training dummy. "You _done_ , already? Some of us got to work out too."

Keith pulls off his gloves, tries to look somewhat contrite and walks away without furthering the conversation.

It's easy to lose track of time, here in the Garrison. It's easy to get used to routine, let the days melt into weeks, months, _years_ , and Keith's been here longer than most. Tasted stability, life suddenly surrounded by hundreds of people, after so long on his own. It goes down smooth. Too smooth. He knows that whatever's out there, it isn't quite so forgiving.

Whatever's out there, even if it's just space dust and _rocks_ and starlight that's coming from a million miles away, it has to be _more_ , he _knows_ \- there are _planets_ , there are skies to touch and suns to take hold of -

(He is out of his room, now - )

On the edge of the horizon, the sky bleeds into another night.

Restless, restless, Keith clasps his hands tight behind his back, paces up and down the corridors for a while before he comes to a stop and presses his forehead to the wall so gently that it hurts.

He doesn't know how long he stays there like this. He only knows when he feels a hand on his shoulder, and he looks up, and Shiro is studying him. Unsmiling. Unflinching, even as Keith narrows his eyes and meets his gaze.

Shiro looks at him, the Garrison orphan, not with the caution or worse, the _pity_ , that Keith's had before, but with a measured kind of temperance that Keith doesn't know how to handle.

"You okay, Keith?" he asks.

"Spar with me," says Keith, without thinking. As he does. It's too late for regrets, once the words leave his lips, and so he rolls with it, barrels on headstrong. "Teach me to get stronger."

There's the barest hesitation in Shiro's stance, a taut silence between them. Inhale. _Exhale,_ and inhale again, and Keith's suddenly conscious of how empty the corridor is. It's a Saturday night. The cadets go out to town, and so do many of the officers.

 _No witnesses_ , and yet Shiro does not move, does not say anything, and Keith starts to fidget, pinned down by those dark, careful eyes. It can't have been more than a few seconds. It feels like a galaxy's eternity -

And then Keith barely has time to blink as Shiro drops low without warning, leg flying out at him in a textbook-perfect tackle. He falls, but years of street fighting kick in and he lands _light_ , light as a cat on his hands and his heels, springs back up on his feet with his fists out, mouth half-open as he gapes at Shiro.

"I thought you weren't going to - "

"First lesson," says Shiro, smiling as he straightens. "Patience yields focus."

 

* * *

 

_"Hey, Shiro. Did you feel threatened? Back then? When you came to watch me on the simulator."_

_"Ha. Of course."_

_"…the great Takashi Shirogane. Threatened. By a new cadet."_

_"Hey, there's no shame in that. But the first time I met you - "_

_"What?"_

_"Nothing. You'd just got booked for a messy uniform."_

_"What has that got to do with anything?"_

_"Well, if you drop out, you'll never beat my records, right?"_

 

* * *

 

Takashi Shirogane graduates with the highest honours possible, and it's not long before he's assigned his first command, on a minor mission to retrieve some ice samples from one of Saturn's outer rings.

"Ice," he jokes about it later to Keith, after months have passed. "Just ice. Ice everywhere."

They're on the roof, Keith with a can of soda that he slices open across the top with his knife. Old habits. No one had ever taught him how those _pull ring things_ worked, but knives, knives he knows like his own hardened knuckles. The cut on his arm that never quite healed right.

Shiro laughs at the familiarity of the sight, says, "I missed that. That _Keith_ way you do things."

Keith arches an unimpressed eyebrow, prompts him silently to go on, and Shiro leans back against the watchtower, spreads his arms in an approximation of Saturn's vast span.

"If I never see another chunk of space ice, it'll be too soon," he remarks, offhandedly.

"When I become your co-pilot," says Keith, "we'll go to Mars."

"You need to graduate first. And for that, you need to _not flunk out_ ," Shiro reminds him, and for the first time in this reunion of theirs, he looks at Keith with concern.

Keith waves a hand, vaguely dismissive. Feels the soda fizzing in the pit of his stomach. Feels himself lightheaded, infinite, in his possibilities, and remembers _mach speed_ ; what it's like to live without walls, if only for the time and space of a mission. He's a wildfire comet in search of a sky. It's _right there_.

"It'll be fine," he promises, and Shiro frowns, but lets it slide for tonight. At least in words.

In gestures, his hand finds its way to Keith's shoulder again.

Keith lets it stay.

 

* * *

 

At ten, Keith finds himself in a face-off with a small-time bully near the dumpsters downtown.

He's just snatched a heavy-looking coin pouch off a girl's back pocket, and he must think it's his _lucky day_ , except that Keith happens to be lurking in the shadows, knife at his hip; and it _might_ just be his lucky day after all, for Keith sizes him up in an instant. Decides: hand-to-hand's more than adequate for the likes of _his_ sort, and tucks one weapon away for another.

It's over before the dust can settle. Child's play to Keith. He darts in, straight and true as an arrow and upends the bigger boy with a high knee to his gut, as quick as it's dirty, and _then_ next thing he knows he's being yanked to his feet by someone in a Garrison uniform.

He's in trouble now, he thinks -

But then the guard kneels so they're at eye level, rubs the dirt off his cheek and asks, _boy, where are your parents?_

Keith only remembers his voice, years later. Like hot sand and asphalt, molten, deep and warm.

Perhaps he had looked a little bit like Shiro. Perhaps not.

So it's with cheap tricks from back alleys that Keith, unwanted orphan, winds up in the keeping of the Garrison, where the fighting's good and the flying's better and he has a bed to call his own and perhaps, even - he barely dares to admit it - a friend.

Perhaps this friend looks a little bit like Shiro. Perhaps not.

( _Shiro's your senior. He's not your friend,_ whispers that drumbeat voice in his chest. _he is, he isn't, he's more, he's not,_ and Keith surrenders to gut instincts. He lets that rhythmic thrumming guide his every turn of the wheel, his staccato, pinpoint-perfect shooting, and he posts one of his highest simulator scores ever.)

His hands remember the heat of the sun. They're still burning.

 

* * *

 

Then the Kerberos mission goes missing, and so does the better part of Keith.

 

* * *

 

In the end, he never quite learns _how_ -

He never learns, and no one would be surprised, honestly, not one of the _authority figures_ who've watched him take to his heels and sprint across the thirsting soil, not the policeman who tried to catch him by his collar the day his parents died, nor the Garrison patrol who raised the alarm a moment too late, the first time he snuck out for an unsanctioned joyride in an old hoverbike he'd found in the scrap heap. He knows how to fend for himself. _That's_ no surprise either.

What Keith has learned is that he will not stand idly by as he watches people leave, not anymore. He has his own trail to blaze.

It is _he_ who steps away first that night before Kerberos, beneath the shadows of the outcropping, and walks back to the barracks to await the crimson dawn; he's always been _stubborn_ , too stubborn for his own good, and so he is untrained in the art of _goodbyes_ , both how to receive them and how to say them properly.

As they part, he relives the tingling sensation of Shiro's grip on his wrist. Wonders how he could have made that right hook connect. If he could have bested him, as a farewell gift.

 _So_ close, a pulse away. His heart's a drumbeat to war in his chest. Next time. _Next time._

 

* * *

 

When he's thrown out over his _discipline issues_ , he's _winging it_. He has no idea where he'll search next. But _alone_ , he can do alone, he thinks, he's been here before, and the part of him that's hanging on knows exactly what he's doing:

For the first time, he's breaking a promise, so that Shiro can keep his.

 

* * *

 

_3\. You're going to find him, and claim your victory._

 

_(and, maybe, just maybe, it'll be one that you share.)_

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! Comments are very loved and you can find me over on Twitter @nahyutas, languishing in space hell.


End file.
